A Christian school worker who was dismissed after sharing social media posts criticising the teaching of LGBT relationships at her son’s school has won a key Court of Appeal battle related to her dismissal. The Mail has more.
Kristie Higgs lost her role as a Pastoral Administrator and Work Experience Manager at Farmor’s School in Fairford, Gloucestershire, in 2019 after sharing Facebook posts criticising plans to teach about LGBT relationships in primary schools.
The mother-of-two challenged a June 2023 Employment Appeal Tribunal judgment, which ruled in her favour but sent the case back to an employment tribunal for a fresh decision over whether her dismissal was lawful.
In a judgment on Wednesday – the latest stage of her years-long legal battle – three appeal judges ruled in her favour, saying that while her conduct was “unwise” it was “disproportionate” to fire her.
They found that the decision to remit the case back to an employment tribunal was “unlawfully discriminatory”.
Lord Justice Underhill, sitting with Lord Justice Bean and Lady Justice Falk, said: “In the present case the claimant, who was employed in a secondary school, had posted messages, mostly quoted from other sources, objecting to Government policy on sex education in primary schools because of its promotion of ‘gender fluidity’ and its equation of same-sex marriage with marriage between a man and a woman.
“It was not in dispute… that the claimant’s beliefs that gender is binary and that same-sex marriage cannot be equated with marriage between a man and a woman are protected by the Equality Act.
“The school sought to justify her dismissal on the basis that the posts in question were intemperately expressed and included insulting references to the promoters of gender fluidity and ‘the LGBT crowd’ which were liable to damage the school’s reputation in the community: the posts had been reported by one parent and might be seen by others.
“However, neither the language of the posts nor the risk of reputational damage were capable of justifying the claimant’s dismissal in circumstances where she had not said anything of the kind at work or displayed any discriminatory attitudes in her treatment of pupils.”
Mrs Higgs, from Fairford, had shared and commented on posts raising concerns about relationship education at her son’s Church of England primary school – not the one at which she worked.
Pupils were to learn about the No Outsiders In Our School programme, a series of books teaching the Equality Act in primary schools and which her supporters say involved discussion of “confusing and harmful gender identity”.
Mrs Higgs, who was posting on Facebook under her maiden name, shared two posts in October 2018 to about 100 friends, one of which referred to “brainwashing our children”.
The first post encouraged people to sign a petition – set up by someone else – challenging the Government’s plans to introduce Relationships and Sex Education to children in primary schools.
The second shared an article on the rise of transgender ideology in children’s books in American schools, with Mrs Higgs adding her own comment: “This is happening in our primary schools now.”
An anonymous complaint was made to the school and Mrs Higgs was suspended and, after a disciplinary hearing, dismissed for gross misconduct.
Mrs Higgs, supported by the Christian Legal Centre, took the school to an employment tribunal, arguing she had been unlawfully discriminated against because of her Christian beliefs.
Worth reading in full.
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By ‘climate events’ I assume she means weather. 100% certainty I’d have thought.
Well I’m on the side of the farmers, I don’t think Starmer has the constitution to reconsider, on the contrary I think he’s more likely to go all Trudeau on them…. This might get very interesting…
Surely the farmers will be allowed to continue protesting if they rebrand themselves “Farmers for Palestine”? The police wouldn’t dare interfere then.
Nice one. Or Stinking Rebellion?
There is a very real risk, he will…his controllers cannot allow the project to fail, which was why Turdeau was so very nasty.
The government doesn’t value independent farmers. To be honest, they probably need all that land for solar panels, wind farms and battery banks to achieve their silly zero carbon power supply network dream. Or to build on. They’ve got to find somewhere for their new prisons and illegal immigrant holiday camps…
Or for big Argi to buy up all the land and mass produce all the grasshoppers, mealworm and other forced food that we all will be required to eat in the near future! (Except the elites of course)
I buy mealworms but only for the Blackbirds & the Starlings.
This is not just about inheritance tax…..now there is talk of banning Muck Spreading, while jacking up the price of Fertiliser….this attack is as mad as the Dutch one was…which means it is coming from the WEF goons. The Farmers will likely get no help from Starmer , as he is under orders…they will have to wait till the next election and we the people better make sure we sling them out forever.
And we the people had better make sure to ABOLISH MANDATORY FIVE YEAR GOVERNMENTS, like the Soviet “Five Year Plans”.
Bring back the VOTES OF NO CONFIDENCE that allowed the people to turf out governments that violated the democratic will of the people.
Stopping muck spreading is something the farmers can do to cause the water companies a massive problem with their sewage sludge.
No coverage on the BBC News, as expected……..disgraceful. They have their heads in the sand [or up some other dark place…]
I sent a TXT to Five Live along the same lines this morning, I said they might start to notice when there’s food shortages.
It was reported on BBC Radio 4’s Six O’Clock News. I don’t know about BBC television news, I don’t watch it.
Once a group of people gets together and realises the unassailibility of their power then there is nothing the state can do to stop them, especially in a demoralised country that begs for anything other than the status quo. A mass movement behind farmers means a swift end to corrupt entrenched power. They are so high on their own supply that they can’t even see this as a threat and therein lies their downfall.
If only it were so simple… Dominic Frisby explains why there won’t be a Revolution..
https://youtu.be/HwT7RtN44Fc?si=ne-lWd7IEiTQbm8U
The right to bear arms in the UK would be my first UK ammendment
So here we have both sides of the coin being controlled by the same narrative.
1- “Farmers Threaten to Bring Britain to a Standstill” is the kind of headline that provokes a knee-jerk response from readers. I will leave you to decide but whichever side of the argument you stand on, you can see that very same narrative being seeded in a negative light over time at the following links
This is not unusual for Will Jones, the narrative is designed to portray ‘The Farmers’ as some sort of out of control nefarious mob. Similar headlines will run in the tabloids tomorrow, riling up the nation against those damn farmers
2 – What was actually said
You don’t have to look too far to see how recent events (somewhat manufactured in my humble opinion) are an attempt to engineer support for the State leading to those involved being labelled ‘extremists’ – https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/farmers-protest-organiser-made-racist-34159402
Feels like a setup to me and it’s a shame Mr Jones has stayed true to form on peddling a state narrative. Hegelian Dialectic in play
Nonsense! Will Jones is just reporting on an article in The Telegraph, which quite rightly shows that farmers are angry enough to take effective action, just like the French farmers so often do.
There is nothing wrong with that.
Nigel Farage gets the crucial point: that it will be much more effective for the farmers to launch coordinated tractor protests ALL OVER THE COUNTRY, instead of just focusing on London.
“Attending the protest, Nigel Farage, the Reform U.K. leader, encouraged farmers to keep campaigning across the country.
He told the Telegraph: “In the 100 rural constituencies Labour now holds, they have to keep up this pressure. IT HAS TO BE PERSISTENT IN EVERY MARKET TOWN.”
The farmers should stop the foreign food imports next.
Cause some serious damage, get some big hitters reigned against the lefties. The lefties are actually quite weak people if pressurised, just a bunch of over-promoted school teachers and librarians – like Cameron and May
I’m sure they could get one of those waste tanker slurry jets to pump excrement over the fence into N0 10. Then stop by the BBC Broadcasting House similar to what the Dutch farmers did with their captured media. Give them something to clean up.
Yes, that’s a good idea — the Leftists do love their foreign food imports.
Every region. Maybe you don’t like South Wales because it is full of smack heads. They got that way for a reason. They were seriouslly hard-working bastards before. You pick them all up even the lowest. As a country there would be a huge morale boost. And with good leadership we could move onto brighter things. Don’t let these sad tossers try to convince you that there is no way back. Many things become possible with the right application of mind.
I think SStarmer & Reeves needs a bit of this treatment from farmers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBdvWsOdeGw
The big question being why the useless leader of the opposition went with immigration for which she has an appalling back story rather than farming
Do you mean the Nigerian Birth Tourist?
Just heard Farage discussing this on his show. The female guest called Labour liars to which Nigel replied with “strong words”…..She should’ve replied with something like….Just for fairness the Tories have been lying about immigration for years!
It’s just time everyone took to the streets and smashed this rotten WEF governance from LGBT ,BLM ,Climate change
Lets make them all net zero
I am with them, and happy to suffer a little if they start restricting supplies. Labour communists are just the most vile people. The blue socialists (toeies) weren’t much better.
How is it that all the parties have adopted socialists policy directions? I fecking despise them all. Communists of different colours.
The farmers need to keep the public onside. That means not disrupting Christmas and delaying their blockades until the New Year.
Then come down hard and not let up.
Yup….Play the long game.